CHAPTER 94

ESCAPE

Lab Underground Tunnel – 17 Minutes Later

Smoke filled the corridors like malevolent fog as alarms wailed their electronic dirge, emergency lighting casting everything in hellish red that made the sterile white walls look like they were painted with blood. The acrid smell of burning electronics mixed with cordite and something else—something organic and unpleasant that spoke of violence recently concluded. James led the way through passages that had become a maze of shadows and death, his massive frame moving with surprising grace as gunfire echoed behind them like thunder in a confined space.

The facility's defensive systems had held longer than expected, forcing their attackers to breach through multiple choke points while automated defenses extracted a bloody toll. But corporate mercenaries were equipped for exactly this type of scenario, and their equipment included countermeasures for every defensive protocol the facility could deploy. What had begun as an organized ta